WASHINGTON: A team of astronomers has discovered a Jupiter-like planet within a young system that could serve as a decoder ring for understanding how planets formed around our Sun.
The new planet, called 51 Eridani b, is the first exoplanet discovered by the Gemini Planet Imager, a new instrument operated by an international collaboration headed by Bruce Macintosh, professor of physics at Stanford University.
“To detect planets, NASA’s Kepler sees their shadow. The Gemini Planet Imager instead sees their glow, which we refer to as direct imaging,” said Macintosh, member of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology.
51 Eridani b is one of the best stars for imaging young planets.
“It is one of the very youngest stars this close to the Sun. 51 Eri was born 20 million years ago, 40 million years after the dinosaurs died out,” added study co-author Eric Nielsen, post-doctoral researcher at Stanford and the SETI Institute.
As far as the cosmic clock is concerned, 20 million years is young, and that is exactly what made the direct detection of the planet possible.
Once the astronomers zeroed in on the star, they blocked its light and spotted light reflecting off 51 Eridani b, orbiting a little farther away from its parent star than Saturn does from the Sun.
Tesla driverless system to use updated radar technology
WASHINGTON: Electric carmaker Tesla announced Sunday it was upgrading its Autopilot software to use more advanced radar technology. In a...
